DBMS > IBM Db2 vs. Microsoft SQL Server

System Properties Comparison IBM Db2 vs. Microsoft SQL Server

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Our visitors often compare IBM Db2 and Microsoft SQL Server with Oracle, PostgreSQL and MySQL.

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Common in IBM host environments, 2 different versions for host and Windows/Linux

Microsofts flagship relational DBMS

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Since Version 10.5 support for JSON/BSON documents compatible with MongoDB

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store
RDF store

in Db2 LUW (Linux, Unix, Windows)
Spatial DBMS

with Db2 Spatial Extender

Document store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS

DB-Engines Ranking measures the popularity of database management systems
Trend Chart

Score	126.40
Rank	#8	Overall
	#6	Relational DBMS

Score	774.89
Rank	#3	Overall
	#3	Relational DBMS

Website

www.ibm.com/products/db2

www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server

Technical documentation

www.ibm.com/docs/en/db2

learn.microsoft.com/en-US/sql/sql-server

Developer

IBM

Microsoft

Initial release

1983

host version

1989

Current release

12.1, October 2016

SQL Server 2022, November 2022

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

free version is available

commercial

restricted free version is available

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

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Implementation language

C and C++

C++

Server operating systems

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
Solaris
Windows
z/OS

Linux
Windows

Data scheme

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

XML support

Some form of processing data in XML format, e.g. support for XML data structures, and/or support for XPath, XQuery or XSLT.

yes

Secondary indexes

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

APIs and other access methods

ADO.NET
JDBC
JSON style queries

MongoDB compatible
ODBC
XQuery

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
OLE DB
Tabular Data Stream (TDS)

Supported programming languages

C
C#
C++
Cobol
Delphi
Fortran
Java
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Visual Basic

C#
C++
Delphi
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Visual Basic

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

Transact SQL, .NET languages, R, Python and (with SQL Server 2019) Java

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

only with Windows/Unix/Linux Version

tables can be distributed across several files (horizontal partitioning); sharding through federation

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes

with separate tools (MQ, InfoSphere)

yes, but depending on the SQL-Server Edition

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

Support to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of data

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

In-memory capabilities

Is there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.

yes

User concepts

Access control

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

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Recent citations in the news

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28 April 2025, IBM

IBM Db2 Modernizes With New AI-Powered Database Assistant
13 November 2024, Forbes

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16 December 2024, Amazon Web Services (AWS)

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7 November 2024, SitePoint

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